Courts

Ex-TD Violet-Anne Wynne tells court she will use Dáil termination sum to pay former employee

Former politician owes €11,500 to ex-employee Fiona Smyth following WRC ruling

Violet-Anne Wynne was in receipt of a TD’s annual salary of €113,679 but failed to be re-elected as an independent.
Violet-Anne Wynne was in receipt of a TD’s annual salary of €113,679 but failed to be re-elected as an independent.
Gordon Deegan
Fri Dec 13 2024 - 18:30

Former Clare TD, Violet-Anne Wynne has told a court that she will use her Dáil termination payment to pay the €11,500 she owes in a Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) award to a former employee.

At Ennis District Court on Friday, Ms Wynne told Judge Alec Gabbett that it is her intention to pay the €11,500 but that her “financial circumstances” have prevented her from doing so to date.

Ms Wynne said that the non-payment of the award “wasn’t something I had set out to do”.

Ms Wynne gave her court undertaking in response to an enforcement application from her ex-constituency office worker, Fiona Smyth for a determination order from the court that Ms Wynne pay the outstanding €11,500.

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Judge Gabbett said that he would grant the determination order.

He warned Ms Wynne that with the order made, she will be subject to criminal sanction if it goes unpaid.

Ms Smyth told Judge Gabbett that he had discretion to apply interest to the award and she was also asking that interest be added to the sum.

In response, Ms Wynne said: “I would be concerned about that. I don’t have current employment and I just think that if I was to account for interest, I don’t know where that would leave me and my family especially at this point in time.”

Judge Gabbett said that out of fairness, interest should not be applied to the award as it is a short period since the WRC decision and that Ms Wynne has accepted that she must pay the €11,500.

In August, the WRC ordered Ms Wynne, who has six children, to pay the sum after finding that Ms Smyth was unfairly dismissed by Ms Wynne.

Ms Wynne – who received a TD’s annual salary of €113,679 – lost her seat in the recent general election in Clare receiving only 310 first preference votes. She had stood as an independent candidate. In the 2020 general election she topped the poll as a Sinn Féin candidate.